The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Many portable communication device sold today, such as a smartphones or tablet personal computers (PCs), are capable of determining their location. For example, a portable communication device can be equipped with a Global Positioning System (GPS) chip to determine the latitude, longitude, and elevation of the device based on signals from several GPS satellites. Some devices also can determine their location using signals from “hotspots” such as Wi-Fi access points. Other positioning techniques available today include proximity sensing using radio-frequency identification (RFID), triangulation using radio signals from fixed cellular infrastructure elements, etc.
Manufacturers of portable communication device devices, as well as various software developers, have created numerous software applications that utilize location data for navigation, searching, social networking, gaming, etc. For example, some applications allow users to automatically report their location to a network server and share their locations with friends and family. As the market for these and other location-based applications and services continues to grow, so does the concern with reliability, accuracy, and privacy of such applications and services.